Lower Moor Farm: Wednesday, 14th March 2018

An interesting session at Lower Moor Farm this morning. Our last trip there was massively disappointing, with just 12 birds processed. I really didn’t want a similar result this week, as we had children from Devizes Academy coming along to see what happens with bird ringing, as part of their time at the reserve today. Jonny, Ellie and Andrew joined me for the session.

Because of the previous session, I took the risk of changing the catching site to the pond-dipping / nature education area and set up a couple of feeders in there on Monday. The schoolchildren arrived at 9:45. These are children deemed to be at risk or too disruptive to be in lessons. Wiltshire Wildlife Trust runs a whole series of events and visits for children from local secondary schools, to get them involved with nature in an active manner. Whenever possible, we try to arrange our ringing sessions at Lower Moor Farm to coincide with their visits. The children were immediately involved and interested. Great questions from them, and they were delighted to get close to the birds. At their request, they stayed with us for over an hour, instead of the thirty minutes allocated. We enjoyed their curiosity and enthusiasm.

As the children left, we were joined by a large group from the Wildlife Trust’s Well-Being programme. This is another excellent initiative run by the Trust to help connect vulnerable people with nature. As they were all adults, I asked if they were happy to have their photo taken and published, which they were and which is posted below.

The catch was wildly unexciting, mainly Blue Tits and Great Tits but, because we were able to entertain two groups of interested and interesting people, it was a very satisfying session. The list for the session was: Blue Tit 26(10); Great Tit 23(5); Long-tailed Tit 1(5); Dunnock 1(2); Robin 1; Song Thrush 1; Chaffinch 1. A total of 76 birds from seven species: 54 ringed from seven species and 22 retraps from four species.

Many thanks to Jonny, Ellie and Andrew for their hard work this morning.